Chinese Gardens and Dempsey Hill

On Saturday in the late afternoon, Niles, Ethan, and I took the green line farther west than any of us have ever ridden before.  Our destination was the Chinese (and Japanese) Gardens.  Of course once we got off the MRT it was starting to drizzle and none of us had an umbrella.  It wasn’t raining too hard to we continued our walk through the gardens.  On our way to the entrance we saw 3 games of cricket being played.  Bonus points to whoever can tell me the point of the game and how it all works!

 Upon entering the gardens we were greeted with a tall Chinese tower surrounded by statues of influential people.  Though it was cloudy and quite grey out, it was still nice to see the Chinese architecture and Confucius.  We took a nice, easy walk by  a couple small ponds where we could see turtles and fish.  Overall it was a relaxing walk through the gardens and I hope to go back to see the adjoining Japanese gardens.  It’s nice to have spots like this in the city, it’s like having Central Park in New York City (except it’s not nearly as big).

From the gardens we took a cab to Dempsey Hill.  I had read some reviews on the area and figured it was another typical Singapore mall with new restaurants to try out.  However once we were dropped off we were surprised at how it was more like an open air plaza.  There were a good amount of restaurants and shops all around yet it was surrounded by trees so you feel like you’re in a little separate village.  We had dinner at a restaurant called Margaritas (not the chain from the US).  We were surprised with how authentic the menu looked and ordered house margaritas and guacamole to start.  The only non-authentic part was the prices…$76 SGD for a pitcher of margaritas (approx. 5 glasses) WHEW!  Sometimes its nice to splurge on a special dinner though I don’t think I’ll be frequenting this spot on a weekly basis!  For dinner I enjoyed a chicken burrito accompanied with rice and small salad.  It was very good and again except for the prices they definitely were spot on with their food.

Chicken Burrito with Salsa Verde

Once we had satisfied our Mexican food cravings, we took a walk around the plaza.  We stopped at Ben & Jerry’s for a taste of home…well more like went inside and saw that an ice cream cone costs $6SGD and said hmm maybe not today!  But it was still silly to see Ben & Jerry’s Vermont t-shirts for sale there.

            

 

Niles and Ethan posing with the Volkswagen bus!

 Finally we ended up at RedDot Brewery.  This place is great!  It’s an open air restaurant and has lots of seating options including a huge patio surrounded by lush, green trees.  There was live music playing some classic Goo Goo Dolls and Incubis, along with more up-to-date hits.  For my beverage, I went with green beer!  Usually  green beer in the US means its Saint Patricks day and Budweiser has their classic green tinted Bud Light.  But at RedDot, green beer is a classic on their menu!  Supposedly it’s filled with health benefits, but hey isn’t all beer good for you?  Either way it was a good beer and I would happily order it again.  Niles went with the Pilsner and Kolsch style beers while Ethan stuck with his Wheat Lime beer.  We all agreed this was a cool spot and it will definitely be on our list of places to get good drinks (at relatively good prices) and hear some nice live music. 

           

 

Good, healthy, Green Beer!